Democratic governor candidates stake out positions at debate

By Andy Metzger/State House News Service

Saturday

Feb 8, 2014 at 10:00 AMJun 12, 2014 at 11:29 AM

On a day when state offices were closed on account of a snowstorm, the five Democrats hoping to win the state's chief executive office convened to discuss the troubled child welfare agency, a proposed $2.2 billion rail line and health care.

On a day when state offices were closed on account of a snowstorm, the five Democrats hoping to win the state's chief executive office convened to discuss the troubled child welfare agency, a proposed $2.2 billion rail line and health care.

Candidate Don Berwick has become more fully supportive of a single-payer, MassHealth-for-all health care system, while his rival for the office Joe Avellone has become vocal in opposing that tack.

"The more I've looked at it the more I'm convinced it's the right way to go," Berwick told the News Service after the Wednesday debate at the Boston Globe. At a forum in Jamaica Plain, Berwick said he would favor the universal health care model supported by some liberal activists if health care costs continue to grow.

Challenged by candidate Juliette Kayyem for his assertions that he alone is willing to consider the issue, Berwick said he would push for the policy.

"Don says he's the only person who's put single-payer on the table. I think all of us know that single-payer could work," Kayyem said, prompting Avellone to say, "No, I'm not for that."

Avellone, who along with other candidates has cited health care savings as a means of freeing state dollars, said in a December forum in Jamaica Plain, "The insurance system has to deliver value or else it will move toward single-payer," and said he was not "religious" about single-payer.

On Wednesday, Kayyem said single-payer would be "a huge fight" and said a governor has to be selective choosing battles, noting that Republican Charlie Baker wants a waiver from the Affordable Care Act.

"It's incumbent on Democrats not only to have good ideas, but to figure out how to implement them," she said. "So the next good idea is lowering costs, which we all know, and focusing on public health."

"It is not a fight I'll run from," Berwick said in response. "I'm in favor of it."

Berwick said when he was acting chief of Medicare and Medicaid, the overhead rate was 1 percent, far below the overhead carried by private insurers.

Steven Grossman, a candidate and the state's treasurer, said Berwick "ought to clarify your website," which says "It is time to explore seriously the possibility of a single payer system."

Martha Coakley, the attorney general and the consistent frontrunner in polls, criticized standardized testing in schools, such as the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System.

"I think we've headed down the wrong direction in the sense that we are teaching kids to a test," said Coakley, adding she is in favor of "accountability" and wants a longer school day with arts and recess and a chance for students to do their homework. "I don't think schools would need much convincing."

A former homeland security official who responded to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and other crises, Kayyem said Democrats should be angrier about failures at the Department of Children and Families, which lost track of 5-year-old Jeremiah Oliver, a Fitchburg boy now feared dead.

"The first thing you do when you lose a child – which Democrats and progressives should be more angry about, because we believe in these programs," Kayyem said. "The fact that we're defensive on DCF, it gives people an opportunity to challenge the benefits of social services. So we do a review, almost immediately. … You have to see how do you fix it for the long-term."

A former child abuse prosecutor who earned fame in the 1990s prosecuting Louise Woodward, a nanny, in the death of a baby, Coakley offered her own plan to fix the agency.

"Everybody knows what that review will tell us. The one thing I bring to this discussion is my experience that says, if you have a 24-year-old social worker – no matter how much experience he or she has – and you send them into a home that's dysfunctional and say, 'Your job is to try and keep this family together but keep the child safe,' you are going to have mistakes like we've had," said Coakley, who proposed a dedicated unit for the most serious cases.

Berwick, who had previously been unsure about supporting the current $2.2 billion plan for South Coast Rail to New Bedford and Fall River, hardened his stance in favor of the rail expansion.

"South Coast has been waiting 30 years for rail. It's time. We need to do this. I think we agree on that," said Berwick. In response to a News Service questionnaire, Berwick said, "I generally support the project. However, I want to make sure that all technical options – including highly innovative ones – have been fully considered before settling on the specific solution."

After the debate, Berwick told the News Service he didn't want to "buy into any existing plan," and said he has "been convinced by what I've seen" that the project is necessary.

The four other candidates have given unqualified statements in support of the project, and reiterated their support Wednesday.

Coakley has towered above her rivals in polling, and said after the debate, "I feel good about where we are right now."

Grossman, whose 11 points earned him second place in Tuesday's Suffolk University poll, said, "I consider the polls at this point to be about one thing: name recognition. When we run our campaign and I'm known by 97 percent of the people of Massachusetts as [Coakley] is now, I'll win that primary in September. … We haven't started to build the name recognition in the public at large. It's been about grassroots organizing and building the army of activists."

The former chairman of the Democratic National Committee who won statewide office in 2010, Grossman was unknown by 36 percent of the respondents in the Suffolk poll. He said the treasurer "is not all that well known a position."

A leader in fundraising, Grossman said he would have the resources to advertise on television and pledged, "I promise you by Sept. 9, I'll be known by virtually every person in this Commonwealth."

In a "lightning round" at the debate held within the Globe's Morrissey Boulevard headquarters, Berwick and Kayyem both said they would support legalizing "happy hour" in the state, Avellone said "home rule" in response to that question, while Grossman and Coakley said no.

Berwick is the only candidate who favors a move to repeal the gaming law, which has started the casino and slot parlor licensing process. In the same "lightning round," Coakley, whose office plans to defend before the Supreme Judicial Court her decision that an ongoing repeal proposal is ineligible to appear on the November ballot, said, "I said no personally but people get to vote." Coakley later clarified that she was referring to votes in municipalities, which determine whether a casino can locate there, and said the decision on the ballot question is up to the SJC.

Coakley and all the other candidates said they do not support the death penalty for accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and agreed with all the others that the state should not have a "three strikes" law on sentencing. Many have argued the 2012 sentencing reform bill, which requires the maximum allowable sentence for certain habitual offenders, is a "three strikes law," though others have resisted that characterization.

The attorney general was the only candidate to say candy and soda should continue to be exempt from the sales tax. Kayyem offered the lowest number for the state's ideal minimum wage, saying it should be above $10.20 per hour, a dip below the $11 per hour the four others pegged it at. The current state minimum wage is $8 per hour. None of the candidates supported a separate minimum wage for teens.

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